Next month, Montreal will launch an international competition for a large-scale public art piece at the Quartier des spectacles, the cultural district that will encompass Place des Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain and the main stage of the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

Mayor Gérald Tremblay says the city is looking for something bold and iconic to engage the townsfolk, dazzle the tourists and, ultimately, become Montreal’s calling card.

When bulldozers demolish the downtown flank of the Bonaventure Expressway – work that will begin next year – taxpayers will spring for another eye-catching artwork at the foot of University St., commanding attention and telling motorists they’ve arrived.

“There is a special place reserved for public art because it is the new entrance to the city,” Tremblay says. “We want it to be an international reference, like we want the Quartier des spectacles to be an international reference. People have to say, ‘I’ve seen this.’ ”

The mayor sees these two big-ticket commissions as the kickoff to a major revitalization of the city’s 20-year-old public art policy. Next year, Montreal will adopt a “one per cent for art” policy, for decades the standard practice for buildings that receive provincial government grants. From now on, Tremblay says, every fire hall, low-cost housing project and arena will have to reserve one per cent of its budget for art.

In the 1950s, Quebec was one of the first jurisdictions to embrace the idea that a fraction of the budget for publicly funded projects should be set aside for art in a bid to protect cultural identity while providing work for homegrown artists.

A one-per-cent policy wouldn’t have meant much during the lean years, when the city barely had enough cash to fill potholes, but a $140-million infusion from Quebec over the next five years in development money means Montreal is ready to replace or overhaul weary properties while giving them an artistic flare to set them apart.

So far, so good. But why stop there?

A report published in August by the Conference Board of Canada is only the latest to underline the strategic role of the arts in creating jobs and building livable communities. “Increasingly, countries around the world, as well as cities and regions, are recognizing the pervasive role that a dynamic cultural sector plays as a magnet for talent, an enhancer of economic performance and a catalyst for prosperity,” says the report – Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada’s Creative Economy.

Now imagine if we:

n really dared to put Montreal on the international art map;

n summoned private property developers to set aside one per cent of their budgets for public art;

n encouraged homeowners to beautify their yards, shone a light on the treasures we’ve already got, and courted philanthropists and art collectors;

n renewed the artistic licence that made us tops of the pops during Expo 67; or

n made up our minds that Montreal was going to out-Barcelona Barcelona and put Chicago’s Millennium Park and Vancouver’s Shoreline Walk to shame?

Hundreds of cities across Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia long ago saw fit to adopt one-per-cent-for-art policies. Others use incentives or barter zoning changes for low-cost housing, green space or public art.

In Toronto, the Trump International hotel and condo tower, under construction at an estimated cost of $200 million in private funding, must set aside roughly $2 million for two artworks – one designed by Steven Andrews, but crafted by Montreal-based Mosaika Art and Design.

In Chicago, Millennium Park is a 24-acre showcase for works as Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gates, a privately funded 100-tonne sculpture of polished steel popularly known as The Bean, and Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain.

“There’s this whole if-you-build-it, they-will-come sense in American cities,” says Lynn Basa, Chicago-based artist and author of The Artist’s Guide to Public Art: How to Find and Win Commissions. “As Mayor (Richard) Daley says, ‘Entertainment is our industry now, culture is our main industry.’ In strategic plan after strategic plan for American cities large and small, people are talking about cultural districts.

“Tiny little towns are saying, ‘Look at the success of Millennium Park. If we build some big public art attraction, we can rejuvenate the area economically.’ I think that is a real factor. When the city government shows it is going to start infusing money into a neighbourhood in the form of art, that usually goes hand in hand with street improvements. It shows the city is paying attention to that area, and that encourages private sector development.”

* * *

Last week, Norman Bethune returned to a disinfected perch at the intersection of Guy St. and de Maisonneuve Blvd. After decades of neglect, the restored statue will be the hub of a terraced plaza framed with ginkgo trees at the heart of Quartier Concordia.

“For many years, Bethune Square was just a place for pigeons to nest,” says Clarence Epstein, director of special projects and cultural affairs at Concordia University. “The idea was to create a place where art, green space and public flow interfaced.”

The statue’s overhaul, subsidized by the Chinese government, is the latest phase in an ambitious program at Concordia, which has mined Quebec’s integrated art program to commission some of the city’s most inventive pieces. At 6,000 square feet and $500,000, Nicolas Baier’s colossal glass mural on the eastern wall of the engineering/visual arts building on Ste. Catherine St. is the largest work ever sanctioned under Quebec’s one-per-cent-for-art scheme.

The John Molson School of Business, on the northwest corner of Guy and de Maisonneuve, will have two large “one per cent” pieces. Geneviève Cadieux, a Concordia University professor and photographer, has created an image of twining ivy which will reflect off neighbouring buildings. Inside, Pierre Blanchette is using cobalt blue metal and inlaid wood to frame a reception area in the lobby.

“Art is a focus of the university’s mission,” says Epstein, who credits the vision of the university’s board for a radical shift in Concordia’s approach toward art over the last decade. “It used be, ‘We have this; where do we stick it?’ ”

Nowadays, Concordia works with the Culture Department, which administers the one-per-cent program, picking spots that are part of the “public footprint.”

“We want to make our art as much of a reflection of our institutional identity as possible,” Epstein says. “By showcasing public art, we have an opportunity to reach wider audiences who might not otherwise realize the role that Concordia plays in engaging and educating the communities that it serves.”

McGill University is in the early stages of a redesign highlighting outdoor sculptures, a fraction of its collection of 1,800 artworks. New acquisitions include a black granite piece by Marie-France Brière in front of the music school, and two one-per-cent-for-art pieces at the life sciences complex.

David Covo, an architecture professor and head of McGill’s visual arts committee, is a strong believer in one-per-cent-for-art policies and would love to see them apply to both public and private construction projects.

“One-per-cent for art programs are not just make-work projects for artists,” Covo says. “They recognize the power of art to educate and inform, and they provide important opportunities for artists, architects and clients to collaborate on installations that add interest, meaning and sometimes even humour to the public realm. Applying programs like this to both public and private projects makes the entire community, not just government, accountable for good design in the public realm of our cities.”

* * *

“Since the 1960s, we haven’t had much exciting public art,” says Sarah McCutcheon Greiche, an art historian and independent curator who is organizing a symposium on public art to be held at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts next month. “It’s such a hot topic and there’s so much happening – except here.”

Greiche is among those who worry Montreal has gotten into the habit of thinking too small since the heyday of Expo 67 and now lags behind other North American cities in using permanent and temporary public art to lure visitors and add buzz. There have been bright spots – she mentions Concordia, Melvin Charney’s sculpture garden across from the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Joe Fafard’s cow Claudia and La Joute, the playful fountain by Jean-Paul Riopelle.

But while one per cent is “very good for popularizing art into daily life,” she feels there is a “whole piece of the puzzle missing,” a dimension infused by vision, organization, money and people who feel passionately about art.

* * *

Cross the corridor from Mayor Tremblay’s oak-panelled office and you can see the oldest of 300 pieces in the city’s public art collection. Well, sort of.

Lord Horatio Nelson assumed his position atop the 10-metre column overlooking Jacques Cartier Square 199 years ago. But when time and weather got the better of the one-armed hero of the Battle of Trafalgar, the city discovered it waited too long. In 1999, the original statue was replaced with a limestone version, at a cost of $242,000.

It’s a cautionary tale, one that helps explain why Montreal has been so slow to invest in new art. Since 2002, the city has spent $2 million on 14 new artworks and $5 million to restore aging statues, with $3 million alone pumped into rescuing the George-Étienne Cartier monument on Park Ave. Quebec’s Culture Department picked up half the tab.

“It could have fallen down because everything under the monument was crumbling,” Choquet says. “So that money is not available for new projects.” Same goes for the $165,000 spent last year to rebuild the totem pole that stood in front of the Indians of Canada pavilion at Expo 67 and the $3.5 million set aside to overhaul Dorchester Square and Place du Canada this fall.

“When I was elected, there was a lack of investment in our heritage,” says the mayor, blaming debt loads resulting from large-scale projects over the last half-century. The $140-million agreement with Quebec will free up cash for development, including public art, he says. “We had a major investment deficit in our existing public art. We had major investment deficit in our underground infrastructures. Imagine, we weren’t even investing in our aqueducts and our roads with the potholes.”

The mayor’s favourite public art piece these days is La Joute.

In 1969, Riopelle designed the fountain for a site near the Olympic Stadium. The remote location proved to be a dud. Tourists didn’t come and most residents in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district didn’t get it. Two years ago, La Joute was refurbished and moved to a square facing the Palais des congrès.

“Place Jean-Paul Riopelle is a real masterpiece,” Tremblay says. “Every time I go past the Quartier international and I see that, I’m very proud of Montreal. All the tourists are there. Gaz Met put in $1 million to make that happen. What was done there is what we have to do more and more in Montreal. Are people going out of their way to see that? The answer is yes.”

Yet Tremblay dismisses those pushing to bring another major artwork downtown. One of the largest pieces ever designed by modernist master Alexander Calder, the 20-metre-tall Man, Three Disks, stands on a windswept slab in Jean Drapeau Park. Most people who wander by have no idea of its significance. Tremblay says it’s true that for too long the work was “really abandoned,” which is why the city spent $120,000 to restore it three years ago. But, he says, an engineering firm recommended against moving the piece.

“For us, it’s more a question of enhancing the value of Jean Drapeau Park.”

Choquet says the city’s goal is to have “a new Calder – at Quartier des Spectacles and Bonaventure, to have new pieces, and not just to move it from one neighbourhood to the other because nobody agrees on where it should be.”

* * *

In his free time, Jonathan Wener likes to paint, and his home is brightened with 19th-century landscapes and contemporary abstracts. No surprise then that the chairman of real estate giant Candarel Ltd. has included public art in commercial, industrial and residential construction projects for nearly 30 years. “I’m very involved in art and I believe in it,” Wener says. “It’s a quality-of-life issue, to make it more pleasant and attractive for the tenants.”

Author Lynn Basa points to California and Oregon which use zoning upgrades and variances to persuade developers to provide for art. “That says to a developer, ‘Okay, if you set aside one per cent for art, you can have this extra floor or build out deeper. If not, we’re not going to give you the zoning.’ ” In Vancouver, private developments that require rezoning can be compelled to contribute 95 cents per buildable foot for public art.

Tremblay says Montreal has bargaining chips when it comes to rezoning. The Griffintown redevelopment is one example. “If we decided there is a special place in the area where something has to be done to protect the heritage, is it possible to ask Griffintown (developers) to do it? The answer is yes. In a project of $1.3 billion, I am sure they will find the necessary funds to do it.”

When it comes to public art, Tremblay says, the city needs to prove itself before telling developers what to do.

“We have to be credible. If you look at Dominion Square, it is right in the heart of Montreal, right in front of the tourist bureau and the private sector and others have been asking us to do something. Once we’ve done it, it’s easier for us to ask the private sector to be a partner.”

“Moral suasion is the way to go,” Wener insists.

Some builders will balk at anything that looks like an added cost, giving an edge to owners of older buildings that weren’t bound by the new rules, he says.

“We have one of the most precious downtowns on the continent and it would be short-sighted to do something that makes it harder to maintain. We have to do what we can to keep it affordable, viable and vibrant.That means inducing, not enforcing.”

How might the city do that?

Wener says Montreal could re-think how much space it requires between a building and the lot line, because deeper sidewalks leave more space for art. “Without it, the public spaces become smaller and all the art is on the inside.”

Brenda Gewurz also sees possibilities: “Developers already have to pay a park tax. Maybe the city has to say it’s a park tax and an art tax.”

Tremblay says he wants to make Montreal “an international reference for public art. We are a city of innovation, of creativity open to the world. So let us call upon our creators, our designers, our architects, our artists to put in place whatever is required to enhance the value of Montreal.”

The mayor is worried taxpayers will demand the city repair roads before investing in art.

“We can do both. We can’t compare the $400 million for infrastructures, filling potholes and paving streets. But we can do more.”

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